[DeTomaso] The coolest hardware ever!

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

Hi guys,

As many of you know, I'm in Paris helping a friend screw his Pantera together 
(it's been apart for almost 20 years, he's owned it for about ten, and 
hopefully it will be on the road later this year).   One of the joys of working on a 
car in another country is to broaden my horizons by seeing different tools 
and techniques that are used to accomplish various jobs.   Today one of our 
tasks was to install the shift linkage, which (for those of you who aren't 
intimately familiar) consists of a series of splined rods with U-joints, culminating 
in at the shift lever, which is supported in a sort of yoke, and pivots on a 
pin.

When all was said and done, I was highly dissatisfied with the finished 
result.   There was notable side-to-side play at the shift lever, where the lever 
could be moved to either side a measurable amount before any motion was 
translated to the rods.

We took the system apart, and found that there was visible play between the 
shifter bearings and the yoke which captures the shifter on each side.   What 
we needed was a precision washer to stick in there and take up the slack.   A 
quick rummage through the washer collection revealed that all the standard 
washers were simply too thick.

Then Stephane had an "A-ha!" moment. 

Peelable washers!

Uh, say what?

Yup.   He has a friend who works at Peugot Sport, building Peugot's World 
Rally cars, and he gave Stephane a pile of trick hardware, including something 
I'd never heard of before--peelable washers.

He showed me one, and to my eye it appeared to be nothing more than an 
ordinary metric washer.   In fact, it was comprised of TEN layers of ultra-thin 
material sandwiched together.   With an X-acto knife, Stephane was able to remove 
one layer at a time, until we had a washer of EXACTLY the proper thickness to 
fix the problem, perfectly.

I was just blown away, and whenever I'm blown away I reach for the digital 
camera:

http://members.aol.com/mikeldrew/PeelableWashers.jpg

Stephane gave me a handful of these things, so I can tighten up my own 
shifter, plus the first one or two really messy ones that I come across.   But my 
question is this--has anybody else ever seen these suckers, and does anybody 
know where to find them?

Two definite thumbs up!!!

Mike



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